WASHINGTON, D.C.– Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, today announced key hires made for the Select Committee. These include Dave Hanke, who will serve as Staff Director, Charles Morrison, who will serve as Policy Director, Caroline Vik, who will serve as Communications Director, and Julissa Milligan Walsh, who will serve as General Counsel.
After announcing the hires, Rep. Gallagher said, “This effort to combat Chinese Communist Party aggression is one of the most important tasks of our generation and will require a team that understands just how critical this mission is. The team we’ve assembled comes to the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party with a breadth of experience navigating Washington and a deep understanding of the CCP, and I feel confident that they are up to the task.”
Dave Hanke, Staff Director
Dave Hanke previously spent more than 12 years working on Capitol Hill in various national security staff positions, including at the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and for Senator John Cornyn, and he was the staff architect of key bipartisan legislation aimed at countering the Chinese Communist Party, including the 2018 Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) and the 2019 Secure 5G and Beyond Act. For the past four years, he has been a Partner at the law firm of ArentFox Schiff, advising clients on issues such as foreign investment screening by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), strategic technology policy, supply chains, industrial policy, and U.S.-China competition. Following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Dave served on active duty in the U.S. Army for three years as a JAG officer in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), deploying to Iraq for 11 months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and the Iraq Campaign Medal.
Charles Morrison, Policy Director
Charles Morrison previously served as Rep. Gallagher’s Legislative Director, overseeing the office’s national security agenda and coordinating its work on the House Armed Services Committee as well as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In this capacity, he worked extensively on security issues in the Indo-Pacific and the US-China competition across a variety of domains, including technology, economics, and ideology. He has published widely on defense and international affairs, and previously worked in national security at the American Enterprise Institute and in the private sector. Charles earned his M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and holds a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University.
Caroline Vik, Communications Director
Caroline Vik most recently served as co-founder and Chief Product Officer of the New York Sun. She previously served as Associate Director for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council after several years at the Department of Defense. At DoD, she served as the Country Director for Saudi Arabia, Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Deputy Director for the Protecting Critical Technology Task Force (PCTTF), a task force set up by the Secretary of Defense to lead the Department’s efforts to prevent licit and illicit Chinese technology transfer and the erosion of our military advantage. Caroline has also served as a policy advisor on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, several presidential campaigns. She began her career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Kennedy School, and Stanford Business School.
Julissa Milligan Walsh, General Counsel
Julissa Milligan Walsh most recently served as Chief Counsel to Senator Ben Sasse and Chief Republican Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. She has also served as Counselor to the Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, conducting oversight of the intelligence community’s surveillance authorities and big data programs. Before that, she was a visiting professor at the MIT/Boston University Technology Law Clinic, and she represented technology companies in litigation, regulatory investigations, and internal investigations in private practice. Julissa received her BA from Wheaton College and her JD from Harvard Law.
